Today's History Lesson (Continued): Always Do The Opposite Of What Netanyahu Advises

J.J. Goldberg at the Jewish Daily Forward (h/t Washington Monthly) elaborates on a point we noted a month ago; it's a bit of recent Middle East history (2002) that illustrates the disastrous consequences of taking advice from Bibi "Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu:

Removing Saddam, [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon said, according to three sources with direct knowledge, will have three main results, all negative. Iraq will implode into warring tribes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. You’ll be stuck in an Iraqi quagmire for a decade. And Iran, a far more dangerous player, will be rid of its principal enemy and free to pursue its ambitions of regional hegemony. Bush didn’t agree.

Israeli leaders continued pooh-poohing Iraq all spring. Dismissal turned to alarm in August, when Iranian dissidents released evidence that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. In September Sharon told his cabinet to stop discussing Iraq. It was annoying the White House.

On September 12, however, a different Israeli voice visited Washington: ex-prime minister-turned-private citizen Benjamin Netanyahu. A longtime Sharon rival, closely allied with Washington’s neoconservatives, he’d been invited to address the Republican-led House as an expert on Iraq. Baghdad, he said, was hiding mobile centrifuges “the size of washing machines.” Moreover, “if you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.” Throughout the Middle East, including Iran, populations will be inspired to topple their own dictators.

Bush, of course, listened to Netanyahu and the neocons, not Sharon and his generals. Alas, Sharon was right. Iraq imploded. Iran surged. The invasion had reverberations, but hardly positive. The rest is history.

Fortunately, there isn't a George "Dumbya" Bush in the White House to take Bibi "Bomb Bomb's" malicious "advice" seriously on the Iran nuclear deal.  But there are plenty of traitors dumb-dumbs in the Republican Party who, for varying reasons, want to stick it to President Obama via Netanyahu's campaign to sabotage the fledgling deal. And, not to beat a dead horse, you also have the "mainstream media," which can always be counted on to uncritically promote lies and liars with gusto.

BONUS:  Here's Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle (click on image to enlarge) with further amplification:

(Photo:  "And then Boris and Natasha gave this bomb to the Iranians...")